


I Love You

by angelaiswriting



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27192952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelaiswriting/pseuds/angelaiswriting
Summary: The five times he thought he loved her, and the one time he told her.
Relationships: Shuhrat "Fuze" Kessikbayev/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	I Love You

**ONE**

_The first time he thought he could love her was when everything else felt cold and distant._

If it wasn’t for the fact that she picked up the call right before the third ring, he’d have one more reason to sulk about the past shitty forty-eight hours. First, a mission almost gone wrong and that has left him battered and sore. _In pain_ would probably be the best term, but Shuhrat doesn’t like to complain _too much_. Then, a fight with a couple of operators he doesn’t know that well but that he has by now labeled as _dickheads_ , thus turning them into people he won’t be looking forward to hanging out with—not now, and surely not even any time soon. _Then_ , problems with his flight, which have led to him landing in Moscow five hours later than anticipated.

And if that isn’t enough, he’s almost considering turning on his heels and hopping down the five flights of stairs that separate him from the chaos of the city out there. He has his duffel bag in one hand and an umbrella that decided to break at the wrong damn moment in the other. And truly, he doesn’t know why he’s still holding onto it but some part of him buried deep inside his brain makes him believe that everything’s going to shatter if he lets it drop.

But he’s ringing the doorbell for the third time now and he thinks that _fuck it, maybe I should really just leave_. And if it weren’t for the fact that the anniversary of his brother’s disappearance is coming up, he _would_ crash at his parents’ place; he’s missed them, after all. However, right as he’s about to truly turn around and start his descent, there’s commotion coming from inside. Barking. Someone groaning. And then the sound of a dog whining and grumbling at an order it doesn’t want to take.

“Hey!” She’s panting, trying to hold back a white and brown dog by its collar. “Sorry, this big baby just came back covered in mud from his walk and I was giving him a bath.”

“It’s…” Shuhrat eyes the big hound dog and for a moment, he wonders how on earth she’s managing to keep him from jumping through the threshold. “No problem.” The smile he gives her is just half there, and he’s painfully aware of it. If it were another time in his life, probably twenty years or so ago, he’d let the tears run freely down his cheeks, but he knows how to keep himself in check now. “Sorry it took me so long. I couldn’t find a taxi, so I had to take a bus.”

But she’s grinning, and the happiness so clear on her face makes her eyes squint. “God, I’m so happy you’re here, Shuhrat! It’s been forever! Come in, you’re soaking my doormat,” she adds with a chuckle.

Walking into her apartment proves to be quite the feat, with the dog— _Buran_ , she says with great pride in her voice—barely moving from the spot he seems to have rooted himself in right in the entrance. He doesn’t move; he simply stands there, with Y/N trying to drag him at least a step to the side, and stares at him, muzzle wrinkled in preparation to snarl, but the aggression never comes. After a long moment of contemplation, Buran takes a step forward, boops his thigh with his nose, and then turns back toward his owner.

“He’s a big boy,” she says when she lets go of the dog’s collar, “but he’s never hurt anybody. Sometimes I think it’s all for show.”

“Is he…”

She nods, and the discussion ends there. He doesn’t ask how she’s been holding up after her grandparents’ death, and she doesn’t tell. What she does, though, is wait silently as he takes his boots off, the only sound that of Buran drinking water in the background.

When he looks up, she’s staring at him and there’s the shadow of a frown on her face, her head slightly tilted to the side as she studies him. He almost feels like a specimen in a laboratory, and there’s this knot slowly forming in the back of his throat that just… chokes him, in a way. He has nothing to complain about, but the stitches on his left thigh sting like a bitch, and he’s exhausted, and all he wants is to sleep curled up under heavy blankets for at least a month.

She doesn’t inquire, though. She doesn’t ask him possibly uncomfortable questions: they’ve known each other for far too long that they now know when it’s time for questions and when it’s not. All she does is offer him a smile—one of those half smiles of hers that always used to make him wonder how much, exactly, she knows.

“You look like you could use a hug.” She doesn’t step forward as she says that, and he doesn’t either, but her eyes never leave his.

“My clothes are wet.”

“And your point is…”

When she _does_ hug him, it’s like being trapped in one of those moments where the body moves faster than the brain, and he finds himself wrapping his arms around her before he even has the time to utter a word. She’s warm and solid, in a way, and it’s almost like he’s being given permission to just let go for once and forget about anything that’s not part of the here and now.

It’s then that the thought pops up unsolicited in his mind. They’ve been growing closer again, and it’s like the time they spent growing apart when he was engaged didn’t even exist in the first place. Her texts are what he wakes up with a smile on his lips for, even though Sanya pokes fun at him at times, and he often finds himself subconsciously longing for her calls.

He’s hugging her, his forehead pressed into the crook of her neck as he soaks her clothes, and he thinks that _fuck_ , if he could open up enough to fall in love again, why not with her?

**TWO**

_The second time he thought he could be in love with her was on Skype._

“Is that my sweatshirt?” The urge to grin is tugging at the corners of his lips and he does his best to suppress it, truly, but it’s a hard task when at some point Buran jumps up on her bed and all Shuhrat sees is his wet nose and hairy snout.

“C’mon, baby, sit back,” he hears her groan as she drags the dog back from her laptop and against her pillows. “Jesus, I hadn’t expected for this bear to fall in love with you so fast.” These words are followed by a jokingly eye-roll and a _cheater_ whispered right against Buran’s ear. “But yes, Agent Eagle Eye, it’s your sweatshirt.”

“The last time you wore my things, we were still in school.” He misses those days— _kinda_. He’s glad he doesn’t have to put up with teachers and classmates anymore, doesn’t miss tests or having to study, but there’s still nostalgia laced with those memories and for a moment, it tastes bittersweet, until she answers back with one of her jokes.

They talk about everything and nothing at once for a long while, spend long minutes catching up over what happened in the past three weeks, after he’s finally gone back to Hereford after the month he’s somehow managed to spend in Moscow. _Bunkered up for most of the time in her apartment with her dog_ is more like it, but these are details he has no problem overlooking.

Timur is nice and although he never says an ill or sarcastic word about how Shuhrat’s leave has gone, there has always been a smile on his lips that wasn’t there before that godforsaken mission. Sometimes Shuhrat thinks his friend knows something he doesn’t—like right now, as he gets dressed in a nice suit to go out on a date—, at least not yet, but he also doesn’t want to ask questions whose answers he might not want to hear, so he always keeps his suspicions to himself.

He _does_ sigh, though, when Tima pokes his head from behind him and smiles at the girl on the screen. _This man’s always blabbing about you_ —or something like that; Shuhrat is too busy worrying about his burning ears and how they’d better not be blushing to actually pay attention to the quick exchange between his two friends.

There’s silence after that. Timur leaves the dorm room after Maxim popped his head in, and it’s just Y/N and him once again. They stare at each other and she’s smiling and he’s trying to force his brain to _think_ because _fuck_ , he’s okay with long silences, really, but not with her. It’s Buran’s soft bark that encourages the conversation to flow again, and she asks if he’s received the package she’s sent.

He has, and when he recovers it from under his bed, where he’s been storing it in wait for one of their video calls, she prompts him to open it. His chuckle makes _her_ chuckle because damn, sometimes she just goes to sweet lengths for him and he never knows what he’s done to deserve such a friend.

“I hope you still love _korovki_ ,” she giggles and when he picks up a handful of _korovka_ candies, that giggle turns into a soft laughter that seems to ring even through the speakers of his old laptop.

“You even remembered about _slivy v shokolade_ …” The smile is more in his eyes than it is on his lips, and he knows it, he feels it somehow. It’s a nice feeling and it makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside, and for the first time ever he wishes he could push himself into his screen and out of hers just to give her a hug. “Why?” he wonders out loud and before she breaks out into a huge smile, he has a brief couple of seconds to scold himself for asking that question. Even though he has no reason to, really.

“You were feeling down,” she explains, “and you also sounded a bit pissed. I thought candy would make you feel a bit better again, since I clearly can’t ship this ball of fur all the way there.” She ruffles Buran’s head as she says so and the dog licks her face before settling down and laying his heavy head on her belly. “He sends something as well, in case you feel lonely, since you basically became snuggle buddies.”

He chuckles, both at her words and at all the time Buran has spent on his lap in the time he’s spent crashing at Y/N’s place. “Not my fault I give nice cuddles,” he shrugs as he digs through candies and chocolates.

There’s a rabbit plushie in there and while it’s been washed, it’s clear who its previous owner is. An ear is slightly off, a little more down the head compared to the other, and it’s proof that Buran played with it a bit too roughly one day and tore it off. The ribbon around the rabbit’s neck is new, though, a vibrant sunflower yellow color that matches almost to perfection that of the dog’s collar.

“I thought this was his favorite,” he muses, holding it up so that both she and Buran can see it.

The dog woofs once before he snuggles his human and a paw accidentally moves the laptop enough to turn it to the side and pick up his wagging tail. A moment later, though, Y/N is back into the frame.

“I told him to pick a toy to send to you, and he chose that. Don’t question his choices, Kessikbayev. My baby knows what he’s doing.”

“Alright, alright!” But they’re both smiling, and it truly does feel like being kids all over again, when they played with his brother and her sisters in the park.

“There should be something else on the bottom,” she says after a while, more seriousness in her voice, and she sits up a little straighter to lean against her pillows. “I know it’s probably silly, but I remember when our parents took us to Kazan when we were eight and we said we would be friends forever. We both lost our bracelets swimming two years later, but…”

Her words fade as he opens the rectangular plastic box he missed just minutes before. There, stretched out open, lies a white bracelet with a single aquamarine bead. It is exactly like the one they had gifted each other a lifetime ago and even though almost twenty-five years have passed, it still feels like yesterday. The blue sky, the birds chirping, and the condensation of their breaths mingling in the air as all they could think about was the fritters they were going to buy soon with the rest of their money.

“Burya and I went back to visit one of my aunts, and when I saw it in the shop window, I thought, why not?”

He doesn’t tell her he won’t be able to wear it, not for the majority of his time at least, but he still has days off, and he still appreciates her lovely gesture. He appreciates it more than he can tell and when he looks up from the bracelet to thank her, all he can think about is how light he feels when he’s with her. Even through Skype.

**THREE**

_The third time he thought that maybe he was truly developing romantic feelings for her was when she came to visit._

It’s the week before his birthday, the only one she’s managed to take off from her work at the vet clinic, but he swears he already feels like the birthday boy on his special day.

He’s rented a room for her in the bed and breakfast closest to the base, but they both know he’ll end up spending more time there than he will in his own dorm. The guys will probably start asking questions, but he knows Timur has his back and that he’ll come up with something—like he’s always done in the weeks that have followed his Muscovite leave. For once, though, he doesn’t mind the questions: he would still prefer not to answer them, for he’s not sure he’d have answers to give anyway, but somehow he doesn’t mind the idea of people he’s (kind of) close to wondering about what’s going on between him and a woman.

Which he… doesn’t know, but he guesses that he’s ready to find out.

That’s what he thinks about as he lies in bed next to her. His thumb is slowly brushing along the two-word tattoo on the side of her ribcage, below her breast, but he can’t exactly focus his mind and _actually_ read it, for he’s too busy wondering how they ended up in that situation in the first place.

“What are you thinking about?” she whispers after a while, gaze focused on the wooden beams of the ceiling visible in the warm light of the dimmed bathroom lights they left on before they even had the chance to towel themselves dry.

His answer is preceded by a low hum that seems to reverberate right in his chest. His lips press a light kiss to the side of her boob before he props himself up on an elbow to look down at her. He smiles and then, with a tingling sensation still in his lips, he whispers back, _You_.

Her hand comes up to cup his cheek and right as she lets out a soft sigh, her thumb wipes across his cheekbone once. “What are we doing?” she asks, her eyes never leaving his as she does her best to even out her breathing. She will be sore in the morning, but Shuhrat doesn’t know yet.

He shrugs his shoulders once and for a moment, he almost regrets staying over. He should have gone back to the base; he should have accompanied her back to the bed and breakfast, of course, and _then_ gone back to the base. Stayed up with the guys for a few drinks, watched football on the huge flatscreen in one of the common areas, and then slept in his bed.

“I think we…” Her tongue briefly comes out to wet her lower lip and he finds himself unable to look away. “We could do it again.” The tone of her voice is hesitating and it falters toward the end of the sentence, somehow making it sound more like a question than an affirmation.

Shuhrat smirks and when she tentatively pulls him down to kiss him, her lips press against the scar above his lip for a moment. “Now?” he asks, voice raspy but eyes twinkling as one of his hands trails down her side and over her hip.

“No!” Her laugh is weak and breathy, and she closes her eyes for a second before she shakes her head. “I want to be able to go on that hike with you and your friends in the morning. But when we’re back… Who knows?”

He’s leaning against the frame of the bathroom door five minutes later, dressed only in his birthday suit and arms crossed against his chest. He’s watching her brush her teeth and absentmindedly listening to her recount something Burya did the day before she left him at one of her sisters’ place, but his eyes keep on getting trained back to the tattoo on her ribcage.

Two words. An exclamation mark. 

The smile that tugs at his lips is hard to contain and even to conceal, and its reflection in the mirror is what makes her turn her head in his direction as a confused expression settles on her features.

“I used to always say that.”

She spits mouthwash in the sink before asking back, “What?”

“ _So mnoj!_ ” he smiles. “ _With me!_ Growing up.”

It takes her a moment before realization dawns on her and her eyes trail down her body in the mirror. “Yeah, I know, that’s why it’s there,” she smiles.

**FOUR**

_The fourth time he thought he was starting to fall in love with her was at a paintball game._

The early spring air is still chilly when they decide to play paintball on the ground of Timur’s _dacha_. It’s a way to pass time—and to give Timur and his girl a few hours alone. Glazkov doesn’t say it—he never does, truly, he doesn’t complain—but his broken leg is bothering him a little and he needs to look after it a bit more instead of hiding his discomfort behind a finger when his friends are with him.

If anything, Y/N has been a great addition to the group—and Buran has managed to bring a smile on everyone’s face countless times with his playful antics and his oh-so-sweet nature around his human. But even though he would love to participate in the game, Y/N has ordered him to stay back on the porch in fear that he—or anyone else, for that matter—might get hurt somehow.

She’s teamed up with Alexsandr and despite the fact that they have already lost three games, they’ve still decided to go for the same tactic one more time. They’re hiding behind a different set of bushes, sure, but he and Maxim can hear them giggle at some pun one of the two must have said, and a victory has never been easier.

They stand still for a while, listening to their hilarity, but before they have the time to take a step forward, Buran dashes across the grounds of the _dacha_ and flushes them out. There’s a rapid sequence of _Burya!_ and _Party pooper!_ and _I can’t breathe!_ that makes both Shuhrat and Maxim laugh out loud, paintball guns still in hand and pointed toward the bushes.

Tachanka is the first to get out of his hiding spot. He crawls across the cold and hard ground trying his best to keep breathing through his laughter as Burya playfully shakes his leg in his usual way to play fight. “Soldier, you’re giving out our position!”

“You should know how to play this game better than this, Sanya,” Maxim exclaims and the second after their friend has managed to stand back up on his feet, he shoots a green paintball right in the middle of his chest. “Dead.”

When Burya runs up to him, Shuhrat can’t help the happy laughter that bubbles up in his chest. “Good boy,” he coos, glove-clad hand petting his head. “Now go drag your mama out.”

He stops for a moment as the dog runs back behind the bush and in that brief minute, he realizes for the first time that he has never felt like this, at least not in a long while—like he has finally opened up, even if only to those close to him.

But then Y/N’s pleas of surrender take him back to the present moment and he smiles because _damn_ , he thinks this is thanks to her as well. Her and this happy dog he’s grown so attached to.

“I promise I won’t shoot, _Solnyshko_!” and even though Max is chuckling under his breath in a way that would lead to thinking the opposite, he still lowers his gun and takes a step back.

Back at the _dacha_ , as Timur’s girlfriend places all kinds of sweets on the table to pair with their tea, Shuhrat takes Y/N to the side for a moment and sits on the porch with Burya staring at them from the porch swing. It’s just the two of them, like after a whole day spent playing and all the other kids went home, but just… a bit quieter, with the first stars starting to twinkle in the approaching darkness of the evening.

“I’m so bad at paintball,” is the chuckle that distracts him from the never-ending horizon. “But Sanya surely wasn’t helping!”

“That’s no excuse, love.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders—earning a low warning whine from her dog—and pulls her closer into his side. “You’re both bad, that’s just the truth.”

The playful slap he earns to his knee is weak and light. “I should have teamed up with Maxim. I think we would have beaten your sorry ass, then.”

She grins up at him and he smiles down at her and for a moment all he can think is _Fuck it!_ before he tilts his head and kisses her.

**FIVE**

_The fifth time he thought he was in love with her, without a doubt this time, she had kids tackling her to the ground._

Tanya’s fifth birthday party is going strong and after the mermaid-themed cake and an endless hour spent opening presents of every kind imaginable, all the kids have gone back to playing. It is a tag game this time and as Burya plays with them, running around the garden and barking happily every once in a while, Shuhrat and Y/N watch the scene with the biggest grins on their faces.

She’s sitting sideways on his lap and he’s probably holding her closer than he ever has. It’s been a while since they stopped wondering what it was and just… embraced it. It’s nothing official, everything’s still off the record, but he has clothes at her place and a mug in a cabinet in her kitchen and when he’s over, the leather armchair in the living room becomes his and Buran’s favorite spot to snuggle and relax.

“I didn’t think your family could get any bigger,” he confesses when she pecks his freshly-shaven cheek.

“I have five sisters,” she giggles, snuggling closer and resting her head on his shoulder. “If we fly low and go for an average of three kids each, I will end up with fifteen nephews! But as you see,” and she points at her sister Marina and the baby bump she’s sporting, “we’re not flying low at all.”

He laughs at that and hugs her closer with one arm as he brings his beer bottle to his lips with the other. “Have you ever thought of…” He shrugs. “Adding some of your own to the bunch?”

She looks at him lost in thought for a while, taking the beer from his hand to steal a sip, before she eventually shrugs her shoulders in return. “I don’t know, I haven’t considered it yet. I’m happy with just Burya and you so far. He’s like a baby to me, he’s just not in human form.”

He doesn’t have time to say anything. Little Kolya drags her away by her right hand, and Masha follows suit and grabs her other hand.

Shuhrat watches with a smile on his face as she goes back to being the babysitting auntie and just as seven children gang up on her and drag her to the floor, Anastasia sits next to him and sends him a knowing smile.

“I’ve never seen her happier than when she’s with you.” Her confession somehow catches him unprepared and although there’s nothing wrong in the words leaving Y/N’s eldest sister’s lips, he still feels the urge to tear his eyes from her. “And I know I haven’t seen you in forever, but I remember you being at your lowest and I’m glad you’ve both pushed each other back to the surface.”

**SIX**

_Then, there finally came the time he told her._

All Shuhrat can do is look at her, simply stare at her dance in the pouring rain that has caught them by surprise after a whole afternoon spent playing with their dog on the beach. He knows the quick and sudden summer downpour isn’t bound to last long, but the intensity of the rain and the deep gray of the sky almost make him think otherwise.

Their Ukrainian vacation on the Black Sea has felt like a dream so far, the best leave he’s had in forever, probably. Nothing has managed to disrupt his peace in the past week and if anything, he’s spent these days getting closer to his girl and Burya. Whether in the apartment they have rented or out exploring, nothing has ever felt so much like home, not even in a foreign country, than it feels like with her.

She’s twirling and laughing now, though, face turned up toward a steely sky and arms open wide, almost as though she could somehow take flight. The ringing of her laughter is drowned out by the raging pitter-pattering of the downpour that is soaking him to the bone, but he swears he can still hear it. Buran is barking by his side, unable to stay still or to stop his tail from wagging wildly against his shin, and there’s something so indescribable in the scene he’s witnessing that his heart feels like it’s being held in a grip.

It is one of those moments when the time feels like it finally stops, if so for just a moment, and something clicks. There’s this one piece that finally finds its place and a light turns on, and everything is clearer than it’s ever been. Not that it hasn’t been before—because it _has_ , even with him not being able to fully admit it to himself—it’s just that it feels… _actually real_ , this time. Like that’s the truth and there’s no hiding it anymore, not when it’s clearly brighter than the sun.

The realization seeps into his limbs like the rain that’s soaking his clothes and he just… smiles. It’s only one side of his lips at first, a smirk that tries to conceal the smile he can’t contain—in vain.

When she stops right in front of him, still giggling like a child, her breathing is all over the place. Fast and almost messy, and she is panting, desperately trying to catch her breath as she shakes her head a couple of times, trying to make the world stand still once again. She has hair sticking to her face and he can see her black bikini through the soaked-through fabric of her summer dress.

He somehow thinks back to the day he rang her doorbell three times. And to the hug she gave him that day, the one that almost cracked his tough exterior right open, and he realizes that he doesn’t really mind feeling like that with her. That he doesn’t really mind being vulnerable in her presence, and that he enjoys feeling like he belongs with her.

It is then that he says it out loud, and it feels good and almost _warm_ inside as he stands there, teeth clattering from the cold. But the rain is too loud, and when she screams over its sound and over that of the howling wind that picks up suddenly, he finds himself kicking aside all the fears he has at the idea of opening up completely.

“I love you!” He screams it in the rain, with the wind slapping water in his face, and it feels better than it ever has in the past. And he’s blinded by the raindrops but even despite that, he sees her face light up in one of those bright smiles she’s never able to contain.

“I know!” she yells back before spreading her arms again. “That’s why I’m happy: because I love you, too!”


End file.
